XpresSpa Group Inc (XSPA)

[Rainmaker80]

This ruling should help us vs DTV. Sadly, it came too late after Google....

The CAFC has now held that software is indeed patentable if it 'improves' the use of a computer - so Wallach and Mayer's broad brush of "I don't really understand technology but I think I can destroy your patent by saying 'hmm software = 101" won't work anymore.

This helps all software patent holders and certainly should help us vs DTV as they have tried to use the Napalm 101 defense vs us.

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2016/05/13/federal-circuit-says-software-patent-claims-not-abstract-are-patent-eligible/id=69147/

We do not read Alice to broadly hold that all improvements in computer-related technology are inherently abstract and, therefore, must be considered at step two. Indeed, some improvements in computer-related technology when appropriately claimed are undoubtedly not abstract, such as a chip architecture, an LED display, and the like. Nor do we think that claims directed to software, as opposed to hardware, are inherently abstract and therefore only properly analyzed at the second step of the Alice analysis.

Software can make non-abstract improvements to computer technology just as hardware improvements can, and sometimes the improvements can be accomplished through either route. We thus see no reason to conclude that all claims directed to improvements in computer-related technology, including those directed to software, are abstract and necessarily analyzed at the second step of Alice, nor do we believe that Alice so directs. Therefore, we find it relevant to ask whether the claims are directed to an improvement to computer functionality versus being directed to an abstract idea, even at the first step of the Alice analysis.